Houston-area military recruiter charged with rape

Updated 10:47 pm, Friday, January 4, 2013

Photo: BAY CITY TRIBUNE

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Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez, seen in an undated photo provided Friday Jan. 4, 2013 by The Bay City Tribune, has been accused of illicit involvement with 18 women, many of them hoping to join the service, and allegedly raped one of them. The allegations against Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez, who faces an evidentiary hearing Tuesday, Jan. 8 in San Antonio, include forcible sodomy and adultery, and go back to March 2009, a little over a year after he became a recruiter. less

Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez, seen in an undated photo provided Friday Jan. 4, 2013 by The Bay City Tribune, has been accused of illicit involvement with 18 women, many of them hoping to join the service, and ... more

Photo: BAY CITY TRIBUNE

Houston-area military recruiter charged with rape

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SAN ANTONIO - In what a military official said may be the worst case of its kind, a Houston-area recruiter is accused of multiple crimes, including rape, against 18 women who sought to join the military.

The Air Force said Friday that Tech. Sgt. Jaime Rodriguez committed rape, forcible sodomy and adultery while assigned to the Lake Jackson recruiting office from August 2008 to November 2011. He faces a hearing Tuesday in San Antonio and could get life in prison if the case goes to trial.

"It was brought to our attention in November 2011, and basically it was brought to the attention of one of the mothers who saw inappropriate texting over the phone," said Christa D'Andrea, spokeswoman for the Air Force Recruiting Service.

A 13-year veteran, Rod­riguez is thought to have had sex with four women, one who was an applicant and another on active duty. He also pursued relationships with 14 others via text messaging - in some cases sending nude photos of himself or asking the women for them.

That pattern has been seen repeatedly in a sex scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, where 30 trainers have been investigated for improper relationships with 56 women in the last year.

6 trainers convicted

Staff Sgt. Christopher Jackson on Thursday was the sixth basic training instructor convicted of sexual misconduct since then-Staff Sgt. Peter Vega Maldonado admitted in early April to having sought intimate relationships with 10 women in technical training. Jackson, 29, was given 100 days in jail, 30 days' hard labor and demoted to airman first class. A judge hearing the case allowed him to stay in the Air Force.

In the most egregious case so far at Lackland, home of Air Force basic training, another boot camp instructor was given 20 years in July for illicit relationships with 10 women, all of them in basic training and some in units he supervised. Staff Sgt. Luis Walker raped one woman and was called a sexual predator by prosecutors.

D'Andrea said the allegations against Rodriguez, 34, were the worst in the San Antonio-based recruiting service's recent history and "perhaps ever." Rodriguez, assigned to the 341st Recruiting Squadron in San Antonio, was removed from his job after the mother found photos in the daughter's text messages. The girl was 17.

"He was asking for some from her," D'Andrea said. "I know that inappropriate comments were being made and I do know that there were pictures found."

Six pages of charges

Rodriguez was given a no-contact order Nov. 14, 2011, and reassigned to a Lake Houston armory. A six-page charge sheet describes the allegations against Rod­riguez, who is detailed to the Army National Guard's 272d Engineering Company. Fifteen women were recruit applicants, but just one joined the Air Force. Another went into the Navy.

"I wish I could say I was surprised by this news, but I'm not," said Anu Bhagwati, executive director of Service Women's Action Network. "Military leadership has proven itself incapable of changing this rampant culture of abuse on its own."

The allegations against Rodriguez date to 2009, but his activities were not detected by the recruiting command.